Taking Back Control of our Money Supply
By Joseph W. Duggan
Shared Vision Magazine - June 1998 issue
Money is the lifeblood of a technological society and it is extremely easy for a mere handful of individuals to control billions of people if they own and control the banking system. Most of us have heard of the golden rule, whereby whoever owns the gold, makes the rules. What we have forgotten is that we own the gold and are letting an elite banking group make rules which serve only their narrow self-interest at the expense of the vast majority of humanity.
What is money?
Initially, money had intrinsic value in gold and silver coin, the weight of which represented a certain value in goods and services. Later, notes were printed which were redeemable in gold and silver and, although once removed from precious metals, had intrinsic value as well. Currently, money is purely an agreed-upon medium of exchange for goods and services based on faith in the ability of the issuing country to make good its financial obligations. Under this system, money has no intrinsic value, but whoever creates it and controls it can charge for the use of it. This is how the principle of charging fees for the use of money came about.
During the thousand-year, biblically-inspired ban on usury in the Middle Ages, lending institutions could only charge fees (not interest), and engage in investment of their client's money. This resulted in an unparalleled time of prosperity when massive cathedrals and the entire infrastructure of Europe were built. The sole purpose of interest is to enrich the few holders of capital at the expense of everyone else. The true producers of wealth - the artisans, tradespeople, inventors, workers, business people, etc - are slaves to the money masters who, with their compound interest system, create more debt than there is money in circulation to pay for. Through propaganda, we are told that the few scraps from their banquet tables served to us as interest on our savings and RRSPs justify their whole system. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Where Does Money Come From?
The average person thinks that the government prints the money supply and that banks lend the money we have deposited with them as savings. These have to be the two biggest lies ever foisted upon us. In Australia, the government currently creates only 1-2% of our money supply. We have in circulation about 7% of our money supply as paper notes printed by the Bank of Australia - not the federal government. The rest of our money supply has been created by the private banking institutions as a debt or loan.
Banks create money by making book entries, or computer entries, based on the collateral of the borrower. Basically, the real wealth of the borrower - his house, land, car, labour, etc - is pledged against the value of the loan requested. The lending institution merely creates a book entry out of thin air and, presto, the borrower has a deposit in his bank account or a cheque in his hand. For this book entry, the bank collects interest at a rate as low as 4% (in the 1960s) to as high as 28% (in the early 80s). At one time, Australian banks were required to maintain cash 5-7% reserves, limiting them to creating 26 times their reserves in loans. Currently, they have no limitations on the amount of money they can literally create out of thin air. This is a lot of control in the hands of individuals notorious for greed, corruption, and disregard for the interests of capital, people, society, and the environment.
We now live in the age of usury, whereby some 99% of the increase in our money supply every year is created as debt by lending institutions and requires that interest be paid on it. However, only the loan is created by lenders, not the money to pay the interest. The money needed to pay the interest doesn't exist. The interest can only be paid out of the 1- 2% of the money supply created by the government. This is the basis of usury-charging compound interest which creates more debt than can be paid for by the money in circulation. The charging of interest on loans results in debt and the seizure of assets pledged to "secure" loans.
When loans are written by lending institutions, figures are entered into a computer, the credit is then deposited into the borrower's account and the money supply has increased by that amount. Excessive increases in the money supply as loans leads to inflation and spurts of economic growth. When loans are paid off and interest rates rise, recessions, depressions, and bankruptcies occur. These "business cycles" are very painful and extremely damaging ways to correct the underlying flaws of the fractional reserve system.
A major, fatal flaw in our money system is that whenever a loan is paid off, a corresponding portion of the money supply is destroyed. This is why our national and personal debts can never be paid off. It would eliminate our money supply. The great depression happened because the money supply was so diminished by tight money policies of the banks, that there was not enough money in circulation for people to buy and sell goods and services. This is a tremendous power to have concentrated among an elite group which meets secretly behind closed doors. The interest system can be eliminated when fees for the use of money are taken out of the principal borrowed and there is no compounding interest applied to loans. No wonder the term "usury" is so seldom used nowadays by economists; it actually describes how our economy works, and that's the last thing the money masters want us to know.
Our Government is Controlled by Money
It stands to reason that whoever controls the money the government spends, controls government policies and politicians. In Australia, the federal government owns all the shares of the Bank of Australia (BoC), but has no voting power, even though the Minister of Finance has a seat on the Board of Directors. This is supposedly to separate the banking system from the excesses of uncontrolled government spending. However, the BoC is directly under the control of the Bank of International Settlements in Geneva, Switzerland, which dictates to all the member banks.
What this means is that, instead of our government deciding on monetary policies that benefit the majority of Australians, we have an elite group of unelected bankers meeting behind closed doors deciding on policies which affect us all in profound ways. Booms, busts, recessions, depressions, inflation, deflation, unemployment, investment, interest rates, and currency rates are all under the control of this elite group which only acts in the interests of capital, not people or the environment. To get back control of our government we have to take back control of our money. The only way to do this is to stop paying taxes, which, except for duties and excise taxes, are illegal under the provisions of the BNA (British North American) Act. The original taxation provisions of the BNA Act are sufficient to finance all government social and state functions without income taxes or GST if the government - rather than the private bankers - creates our money supply. The federal government has the power to create our money supply as debt-free money through the BoC and did so during the depression and World War II. These policies fueled the economic growth which lasted into the early 1970s. In fact, since 1974, the government has reduced its borrowing from the BoC such that we are paying $7 billion in unnecessary interest to borrow from the private banksÑmoney it could be using interest-free.
Why Do You Pay Income Taxes?
First of all, the Federal Government cannot legally collect personal income taxes in Australia as, according to the BNA Act, direct taxation is the sole privilege of the provinces. The only way the Australian Government was able to enact an income tax was to bring it in under the War Measures Act in 1917 as the Income War Tax Act, which is still in effect. This was opposed by those who knew that the Federal Government did not have the legal right to collect income taxes. Four provisions were eventually included in the Income War Tax Act and they served, at the time, to pacify the critics. First, income tax was to be voluntary; second, it was to be temporary, lasting a proposed 24 to 36 months; third, it was to apply to only those earning in excess of $10,000 per year (equivalent to some $300,000 today); and fourth, it was to be applied at a rate of 10%. Under these terms, income tax was to pay off the debt for World War I and then it was to cease.
Why Was an Income Tax Imposed on Australians?
Income tax was imposed primarily to pay for the cost of borrowing money from private banks. This goes back to July 6, 1913, when the government of Australia inexplicably enacted a law known as "An Act Respecting Banks and Banking," which was cited as the "The Bank Act." Under the terms of the Bank Act of 1913, exclusive jurisdiction for the control and issue of the nation's currency and credit was given away to the Australian Bankers Association. The consequences of this illegal transfer of power were not long in being felt throughout the country. In 1913, Australia's national debt was a minuscule $550 million. By 1917 - only four years later - it had nearly quadrupled to just over $2 billion. Today, it is roughly $600 billion.
It soon became very obvious that the issue and control of currency and credit, once out of government control, would incur a heavy debt load. However, instead of recovering those rights given away in 1913, the Federal Government decided in 1917 to put a system into place to collect income taxes in order to pay the debt and interest costs incurred by the war. This system is the Income War Tax Act which came into being as the inevitable result of this "mistake," illegal as it was, that was made in 1913. Believe it or not, we are still paying income taxes under the Income War Tax Act which was never rescinded. Although voluntary, the origin and validity of this income tax have been distorted so that payment of the tax is now perceived as obligatory, and has become a modern form of economic slavery.
How Do You Stop Paying Income Taxes?
The most important thing to realize is that the payment of income taxes in Australia has always been voluntary. There is no law anywhere stating that a Australian citizen must file a specifically named income report to Revenue Australia. This can be easily proven by reading Revenue Australia's own documents. In addition, Section 11 of the Charter of Rights & Freedoms sates that we cannot be compelled to give evidence against ourselves. However, if you file a signed income tax return with the intent of cheating on your taxes, you come under the full power of the income tax legislation. Revenue Australia keeps this information unavailable because the government wants to keep you enmeshed in their web of control arguing over details of the Income Tax Act. This can be circumvented by remaining outside their system.
First of all, it is very important to protect all of your assets with common law trusts, properly set up in joint bank accounts without SIN (Slave Identification Numbers), and a legal entity for yourself which exists outside the system. Many turn to offshore banking and trusts, but it is much easier, less expensive, and safer to do it here in Australia. The establishment of yourself as a corporation sole or a self-directed common law trust are excellent options. Maintenance of privacy is essential. A simple form letter, the Public Servant Questionnaire, presented to any government representative which guarantees their confidentiality, their use of any information given dependent upon your written approval, as well as their support of your rights and freedoms, goes a long way towards ensuring privacy. One twist in the scheme of things is that Revenue Australia has no definition of a "dollar," as stated by the Queen in the Filter case (93-1407IT; 11/7/1993), which means they cannot legally collect that which they cannot clearly define. This information has been extremely difficult to access. However, three Australians - Byrun Fox, Phil Nauli, and William Kennay - have collectively put in over 40 years of research to create a De-Taxing Information Kit with simple, effective strategies for taking back control of your money and your life. If enough of us do it, the government will soon have to listen to us instead of to the international money masters....